How To Analyze Data. CSE Program Evaluation Kit, Volume 8. Second Edition.

Fitz-Gibbon, Carol Taylor; Morris, Lynn Lyons

The "CSE Program Evaluation Kit" is a series of nine books intended to assist people conducting program evaluations. This volume, the eighth in the kit, is divided into three sections, each dealing with an important function that quantitative analysis serves in evaluation: summarizing scores through measures of central tendency and variability, testing for the significance of differences found among performance of groups, and correlation. Chapter 1, "Introduction," discusses uses of statistics. In Chapter 2, "Summarizing a Single Set of Scores," ways of describing data from a single variable are presented. Chapter 3, "Examining Differences between Groups," presents techniques for examining differences between groups of cases: the t-tests, analysis of variance, and the sign test. In Chapter 4, "Examining Relationships between Variables," relationships between pairs of variables are introduced. In Chapter 5, "Constructing Tests and Analyzing Questionnaires," the usefulness of statistical procedures in developing measuring instruments is illustrated. Chapter 6, "Selecting Statistical Procedures," provides an approach that can be widely adopted and adapted, using a body of real data. Chapter 7, "Meta Analysis," also uses real data in introducing the technique of meta analysis, a quantitative approach to synthesizing research findings. Detailed worksheets, nontechnical explanations, and practical examples accompany the discussion of each statistical procedure. A discussion of meta analysis techniques is also included. Appendixes contain a self-instructional program, a version of "Theory-Based Evaluation," tables, and data for Chapter 6. (Contains 18 worksheets, 13 tables, 65 figures, and 15 references.) (SLD)